Uncertain Days

No-one can deny that, at the Uncertainty Division’s shows, “uncertainty” is
– certainly – the operative word. Frankly, I had no idea what was going on
in this production, Out of Your Mind. But it was the first thing I’ve
laughed hard at for weeks.

Initially, it all looked dubious: four men in white coats demanding
audience participation: something I normally loathe. In fact, that
participation proved to be the stimulus for some really top improvisation,
Out of Your Mind meaning exactly that: indiscriminate thoughts from a
member of the audience forming the basis of an extemporised narrative.

The stimuli taken from a stereotypical New Hall girl in the audience
included, obviously, road-kill, snakes and sermons.

Improvising an hour’s worth of narrative out of such unedifying stimuli
would seem dangerous – some might say crazy – but, actually, it was very
good. It was certainly strange: a collection of stills using the girl’s
thoughts, with the onus falling heavily on the conflict between boredom and
interest. Boredom, it seems, gives life meaning: it forces you to find
something interesting amidst the sheer boredom of life; something we can no
doubt relate to, spending half our year in a town the size of an American
shopping mall. These interesting things include, among others, violence,
poetry and recreational drugs.

This was great improvisation – justifiably acclaimed during its stint at
the Fringe this year – the kind where you try and convince yourself that it
must have been scripted. And it changes every evening, according to the
random thoughts of the participating member of the audience.

James Lark, as the news-reader, and Andrew Ormerod as the biscuit tycoon –
McVitty – stole the show with lucid vocabulary and lightning reflexes. The
cheesy yet eerie keyboard music, such as might feature in an Aaron Spelling
serial, worked as a hilarious but atmospheric backdrop to the bizarre
narrative unfolding.

As I said, I didn’t have a clue about what was going on, but I nearly wet
myself laughing at Lark’s impression of the singing mice from Bagpuss.
Definitely worth catching.